Web Design and Web Development Blog from Webilicious in Tasmania

Moved Web Hosting from VentraIP to ROBTEC Hosting

Neil Robertson 29 April 2026

Back in the Cove / early VentraIP days, support tickets seemed to be answered almost instantly night or day and issues were usually resolved quickly by experienced support staff.

As VentraIP grew, the most experienced support staff became second level support and more complex support requests were escalated. This sometimes caused an additional but perfectly acceptable short delay.

Now it often takes between 6 and 12 hours before an issue is even looked at. If the support person needs more information, a question might be asked (by which time you may have logged off for the day or it might be the middle of the night and you are fast asleep). You respond as quickly as you can but you are then back at the end of the queue. In practice it can sometimes take days for a simple request to be resolved.

Based on their current pricing I consider VentraIP are now in the "premium" hosting business. Unfortunately, their support is no longer "premium" quality and there is better value for money elsewhere.

I have moved my hosting account from VentraIP to ROBTEC Hosting.

My previous VentraIP cPanel plan was $354 / year for 15 GB SSD Disk Storage, 6 GB Memory and 300% CPU.

My new ROBTEC Hosting cPanel plan is $180 / year for 20 GB NVMe Disk Storage, 6 GB Memory and 600% CPU.

I now have more storage, faster storage and more CPU for approximately half the cost.

I have also transferred 18 (mostly .au) domain names to ROBTEC Hosting and will be saving over $125 per year in domain registration fees.

My websites are loading significantly faster on ROBTEC Hosting and the support is excellent like it was in the early days of VentraIP.

In the mysites.guru monitoring image below, you can see the improvement in response times when my website was moved from VentraIP to ROBTEC Hosting.

2026 Bugmageddon and Why It Might Be Time to Finally Update Your Old Joomla 3 Website

Neil Robertson 17 April 2026

2026 Bugmaggedon

Recent articles in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and The Conversation forewarn that a new model of AI from Anthropic is able to identify bugs and vulnerabilities, "in every major operating system and every major web browser". For example, the model found a 27 year old vulnerability in OpenBSD and a 16 year old vulnerability in FFmpeg.

Other systems such as content management systems and add-ons are presumably also affected.

Anthropic has apparently decided against releasing the model to the public in the meantime because of the potential risks.

Given the seriousness of this situation, website owners should urgently update all systems to supported versions and promptly apply updates as they are released to minimise risks.

WordPress

As per the official documentation, "The only current officially supported version is the last major release of WordPress". As at 17th April 2026, anything other than WordPress version 6.9.4 is potentially at risk.

Regularly check for new versions and update promptly.

Joomla

Similarly with Joomla, anything other than the latest Joomla 5.x and 6.x releases (currently Joomla version 5.4.5 and Joomla version 6.1.0) including Joomla 3.x and Joomla 4.x are potentially at risk.

Regularly check for new versions and update promptly.

All Content Management Systems

Remove unused add-ons, themes and templates.

Minimise the number of add-ons, themes and templates.

Update the remaining third party add-ons, themes and templates to the latest versions. Regularly check for new versions and update promptly. Consider automating updates.

Look into security hardening options. Use free or paid online security scanners that can scan your website, identify weaknesses and suggest ways to fix vulnerabilities.

Many security precautions are simple and easy to implement such as enabling security headers by setting up the plugin included in the latest versions of Joomla or adding a few suitable lines to your .htaccess file or similar.

PHP

Make sure your website is running on a supported version of PHP.

Anything other than PHP version 8.2 and later is potentially at risk.

Good Quality Web Hosting

Make sure you are hosting with a good quality web hosting provider that will update servers promptly when necessary.

Backups

Take regular backups and copy the backup files off-site.

Have long retention dates on backups as it's not always immediately obvious that your website has been hacked.

Other Sensible Security Measures

Other things you can do include updating phones, computers, laptops, browsers and routers. Devices that are no longer supported should be replaced.

Use strong passwords and use a password manager to help manage your passwords.

Enable multi-factor authentication wherever possible.

Pay attention to security notices and promptly follow through with updates and other relevant advice.

At least 10 good reasons to update to Joomla 5 now!

Neil Robertson 28 July 2024

Joomla 4.x and earlier are no longer supported!

Joomla 5.x was released in October 2023. Assuming all your favourite extensions are compatible and your hosting environment is suitable, there are at least 10 good reasons to upgrade to Joomla 5.x now.

Long Term Support Versions of Joomla from 2005 to 2029

1.0

1.5

2.5

3.x

4.x

5.x

6.x

UNSUPPORTED

SUPPORTED

1. Security

As per the Sucuri Hacked Website & Malware Threat Report at https://sucuri.net/reports/2023-hacked-website-report, one of the main causes of a hacked Joomla website is failing to keep Joomla and third party extensions regularly updated. Joomla 5 has security enhancements over earlier versions of Joomla.

2. Performance

Later versions of Joomla are faster. Websites that load quickly typically rank better in search engines and receive more traffic.

3. Hosting

Unsupported versions of Joomla are stuck on older and unsupported versions of PHP that the hosting company may retire at any time. This is not ideal from a security point of view or a performance point of view as newer versions of PHP are faster. Falling too far behind makes it difficult to migrate to the latest Joomla version as multiple migrations are needed while juggling compatible PHP versions along the way.

4. Support

Finding support for older versions of Joomla and third party extensions is increasingly difficult. Many developers have dropped support for Joomla 3.x and earlier versions so any issues that arise may not be able to be fixed until the website is migrated to a newer version of Joomla.

5. Extension Availability

Developers are now focused on Joomla 4 and Joomla 5 and have removed the earlier versions of their extensions from the Joomla Extensions Directory and their websites. This makes it difficult to track down extensions compatible with Joomla 4 and earlier and support is often non-existent.

6. Better User Experience

The later versions of Joomla have a new control panel with a better user experience featuring a cleaner and more organised interface. The new interface also works better on mobiles for anyone administering Joomla websites on their tablet or phone.

7. Enhanced SEO Features

Joomla 5 introduces new SEO features such as character limits on the meta description fields and support for rich snippets (schema.org).

8. Improved Accessibility

Joomla 5 has built in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) compliance to ensure Joomla websites are accessible to a wider range of users including those with disabilities.

9. Other New Features and Enhancements

Joomla 5 includes many other new features and enhancements such as the Task Scheduler, Workflows, a new Media Manager, Smart Search improvements such as the ability to search custom fields, Child Templates, Multi-factor Authentication and Guided Tours.

10. An Opportunity for a Clean Up

Any carefully planned migration or upgrade presents an opportunity for a review of the current website including content and extensions. Third party extensions that are no longer being used should be removed. It may be possible to remove some third party extensions in favour of functionality that is now built in to the later versions of Joomla. Reducing the number of third party extensions can improve security, can reduce the ongoing maintenance effort and can also improve performance.

Migrate My Joomla Website

Migrate from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 3.x

The cost of migrating from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 3.x depends on the number of third party extensions and whether there are Joomla 3.x equivalents, whether there is an equivalent Joomla 3.x template and other factors. A straightforward Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 3.x migration typically takes at least five hours and costs from around $450.

Migrate from Joomla 2.5 to Joomla 3.x

The cost of migrating from Joomla 2.5 to Joomla 3.x depends on the number of third party extensions and whether there are Joomla 3.x equivalents, whether there is an equivalent Joomla 3.x template and other factors. A straightforward Joomla 2.5 to Joomla 3.x migration migration typically takes at least three hours and costs from around $250.

Migrate from Joomla 3.x to Joomla 4.x

The cost of migrating from Joomla 3.x to Joomla 4.x depends on the number of third party extensions and whether there are Joomla 4.x equivalents, whether there is an equivalent Joomla 4.x template and other factors. A straightforward Joomla 3.x to Joomla 4.x migration migration typically takes at least four hours and costs from around $350.

Upgrade from Joomla 4.x to Joomla 5.x

The cost of updating from Joomla 4.x to Joomla 5.x depends on the number of third party extensions and whether there are Joomla 5.x equivalents, whether there is an equivalent Joomla 5.x template and other factors. A straightforward Joomla 4.x to Joomla 5.x update typically takes at least one hour and costs from around $88.

Upgrade from Joomla 5.x to Joomla 6.x

The cost of updating from Joomla 5.x to Joomla 6.x depends on the number of third party extensions and whether there are Joomla 6.x equivalents, whether there is an equivalent Joomla 6.x template and other factors. A straightforward Joomla 5.x to Joomla 6.x update typically takes at least one hour and costs from around $88.

Contact me for a quote.

Upgrade or Migrate to Joomla 5.x!

Neil Robertson 20 July 2024

Joomla 1.5

Release Date: January 2008
Support Ended: September 2012

Joomla 2.5

Release Date: January 2012
Support Ended: December 2014

Joomla 3.x

Release Date: September 2012
Support Ended: August 2023

Joomla 4.x

Release Date: August 2021
Support Ended: October 2025

Hotfixes

Some security hotfixes for Joomla end of life versions are available which can help secure websites with unsupported versions of Joomla until website owners are able to update to a supported version. Links for these can be found on the official Joomla website.

Joomla 5.x

Release Date: October 2023
Support Ends: October 2027

Joomla 6.x

Release Date: October 2025
Support Ends: October 2029

Joomla 5.x was released on 17th October 2023.

New Joomla 5.x Features

Some of the new features included in Joomla 5.x are:

performance and security improvements
dark mode support for Administrator
built in system font support for the default Cassiopeia template
FontAwesome 6
rich snippets (schema.org) support
AVIF image format support in Media Manager
User Action Log improvements such as logging creation of new custom fields, user blocking and user unblocking
Smart Search improvements such as searching in custom fields
codebase cleanup and optimisation

It's Safe to Migrate or Upgrade to Joomla 5.x Now

Assuming all your favourite extensions are Joomla 5.x ready and your hosting environment is suitable for Joomla 5.x, now is a good time to upgrade to Joomla 5.x.

I have already updated my business website to Joomla 5.x, updated most Joomla 4.x clients to Joomla 5.x and started building new websites with Joomla 5.x.

Using a template that's compatible with Joomla 4.x and Joomla 5.x (such as JoomShaper Helix Ultimate) simplifies the update process considerably.

Smart Search

As per the official instructions on the Joomla website , the original Joomla search (com_search) is no longer included in Joomla 5 and com_search should be removed before upgrading to Joomla 5. Joomla 5 includes Smart Search (com_finder) which should be used instead.

Google reCAPTCHA

Joomla 5 no longer includes Google reCAPTCHA but third party Google reCAPTCHA extensions can be installed or use hCAPTCHA or Cloudflare Turnstile instead.

Joomla 4.x Support

Joomla 4.x will still be officially supported until October 2025. This gives Joomla website owners plenty of time to upgrade to Joomla 5.x. Joomla 4.x websites will, of course, still operate after October 2025 but may be more vulnerable to hackers.

Extension and Template Support for Joomla 5.x

Joomla 5.x ships with a backwards compatibility plugin which is enabled by default (as at July 2024).

In theory, the backwards compatibility plugin should allow any extension that works on Joomla 4 to work on Joomla 5.

Once all the third party extensions on your Joomla 5 website are fully Joomla 5 compatible, you should be able to disable the backwards compatibility plugin to give your website a performance boost. I recommend trying this on a development copy of your website initially as disabling the plugin may cause an error on the website where you are not able to easily re-enable the plugin if needed.